COLONIZATION AND ALIENATION.
THE evidence of Mr. Cunard before Lord Monteagle'a Committee, shows how one of the presumed " difficulties " of colonizing may be nullified by shrewdness and energy. It is sometimes objected that the most accessible colonies are no longer open to emigrants direct from home, because of the vast proportion of the Crown lands already alienated ; and in that respect Prince Edward Island has been regarded as the opprobrium of the British Colo- nies. It was all alienated in one day. Now, by the evidence which we reprint in another page, it is shown, that even Prince Edward Island is immediately available for purposes of settle- ment to a large extent. This Colonial Office "difficulty" is there- fore met in its most formidable aspect and effectually quashed. Mr. Cunard and his son hold about a fifth of the island ; their land is good land; the climate and social condition of the colony are good"; its commerce, though still of a primitive kind, is in- creasing ; its inhabitants live well—are well lodged, clothed, and fed, and have ample opportunities for giving their children a simple education. Mr. Cunard does not afford to his tenants any special assistance : the success of his settlements seems to be the result of equitable terms for the settler, of well-enforced regula- tions for preserving order, of the practical example thus created for successive settlers, and also perhaps of a selection which he virtually exercises in admitting settlers to his lands. He requires each head of a family to have about 101. in cash. There are no public works on which settlers can be employed in the island ; and this fund of 101. is a substitute for such subsidiary employ-. ment, to enable the settler to maintain his family. Mr. Cunard, we say, offers no active assistance to his settlers, beyond the pub- lic facilities, such as good roads, a good neighbourhood, and so forth. The land is uncleared, but the newly-arrived emigrant is sure to obtain that help from his neighbours which he is expected subsequently to return in kind. He is allowed a long lease of his land, at a moderate rent ; and can at any time purchase the fee- simple at the fixed rate of 11. per acre. The landlord has at one period been threatened with " anti-rent " combinations ; but firmness has successfully asserted the law ; and he now ands his tenants orderly, industrious, and thriving. Many purchase the fee-simple, though they are in no hurry todo so ; preferring to
i use their money in more directly profitable investments. Among his tenantry is a gentleman worth 20,0001.; and many are per- sons of substance. There appears to be no material difference m
the capacity of Irishmen at compared with Englishmen and Seotcbmen for the business of such settlement : the Irish tenants do not starve in helpless idleness, nor repudiate their rents, nor shoot at their landlord ; although the rude and remote colony is not overrun with police and soldiers. Mr. Cunard, one landlord in the island, is willing to receive into his settlements not fewer than a thousand emigrants a year. Is it possible to imagine a more instructive living proof of What may be done merely by honesty, ingenuity, and diligence in devising good plans ? Mr. Cunard has tried his plan in that colony which would be supposed to offer the greatest difficulty from the alienation of lands; and with such signal success, that little Prince Edward Island, " all alienated in one day " though it was, absorbs some eight or ten hundred of our spontaneous emigrants yearly. But, of course, his plan is not the only one that might succeed. It is evident, therefore, that the cooperation of the colonists might be procured, not only in their corporate and public capacity, but individually as landowners. Other in- stances might be cited, in New South Wales, New Brunswick, New Zealand, Canada, &c. ; but this case of Prince Edward Is- land tells a fortiori. There is, indeed, something to he done on our part. To obtain the cooperation of the landowners to any extent, we must make the results profitable and attractive to them. Three modes of con- ciliating landlords to the work at once occur to us. First, the emigration, to furnish them with good materials, should be offici- ally selected, superintended, and directed. Secondly, various public works, in which the mother-country, as colonizer, and the colony, as recipient of emigrant labour, would take a reciprocal interest, might well receive the aid of an imperial sanction, which would in various ways facilitate the planning and survey- ing, and the raising of funds. Thirdly, the colonists, instead of being treated as a subordinate race, under the Colonial Office, and socially inferior to the aristocratic races of the mother-country, should in all respects be treated on an equality—admitted to equal consideration in all matters of fiscal or commercial legislation ; freely consulted, by some sort of representation in the metropolis, even though plans for a formally representative body may for a time continue to be discountenanced ; and the official or social station of the colonists should be formally recognized here—their official honours, for instance, ceasing to be purely local and being admitted to imperial recognition. In short, the colonies, called upon to aid in the work of equalizing the distribution of popula- tion, for the general benefit no doubt but for the special and con- centrated benefit of the mother-country, should be recognized as being really "integral parts of the empire." On such terms, ac- cess might be readily obtained for British settlers to boundless tracts of land, although those lands may have been " alienated."
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